N.O. Pundit

Herb Brooks

I went to college in Minnesota. Not much of a winter lover, but I could play and trip in the snow with the best of them. I'm not a native, but I know what broomball is (and have played it, bruises and cracked ribs and all).

I was recounting the story of being in the cafeteria at Carleton when someone walked in and yelled, "We just beat the Russians at hockey". It was a special moment for all of of us eating our salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, and a large whoop went up.

The funny part was that I was recounting this story to Sam, my friend and bartender at the Charleston bar in Chicago around 1996.

Sam was a speed skater, Olympic caliber in 1980, and close friends with Eric Heiden at the time. Sam did not make the team in 1980 (I think only because of an injury), but was sitting with Eric behind the "Miracle on Ice" bench in Lake Placid. Together they watched the 4-3 upset against the Russians. So much for my story.

But this is not about my story. Or Sam's. It is about Herb Brooks.

Even though I am not (definitively not) a hockey expert, I could see a revolutionary new style of hockey playing in our 1980 Olympic squad. There was always motion. Constant concentric rotation from the center out. The Russians, the Finns, the Swedes, did not play this way.

After Mike Eruzione made the score 4-3, I remember American defenders falling to take a puck in the face or the gut to stop a score. It is not that Herb Brooks demanded such behavior; it is that his players rose to such behavior because of his leadership.

Fast forward to the present. I am no more of a hockey expert now than I was then. Herb Brooks and his "Miracle on Ice" team lifted us Americans at a time more crucial than any that I can remember. I was not alive to remember the Berlin Airlift. I am too young to remember the Cuban Missile crisis. I was twelve during the fall of Saigon.

But I was at an adult thinking and feeling age for the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Carter had crashed and burned in the desert. Few college kids (yes, kids) knew what to think of Reagan. It was not yet "Morning in America". Were my political thought processes clear then? Of course not! I couldn't possibly say I have them sorted out now.

Today, one of the great Americans has passed. Herb Brooks only wanted to be a great hockey player and coach. Most great Americans just want to be great at the thing they do best. To be a great baseball player, a great bicyclist, a great comedian.

Every so often though we are humbled and awed when a Jackie Robinson steps to the plate, a Lance Armstrong strides to a fifth Tour de France victory, and a Bob Hope outlasts not only his seven doctors, but George Burns' five doctors as well. They become more than they ever intended to be. This simply cannot be planned.

Herb Brooks, rest in peace.

Posted by nopundit at August 12, 2003 11:04 PM